Marx looms over the American political landscape.

Victor Marx, that is.

As Democrats continue to embrace anti-white socialists, Colorado Republicans nominate a strange outsider for governor. Liberal media considers Victor Marx the “most extreme GOP candidate in the nation.” Most of his political positions are standard fare for conservatives. But what makes him stand out is his bizarre comments and sketchy background.

Marx claims to be a high-risk humanitarian who rescues women from dangerous circumstances. He told an interviewer he helped kill a man when he was seven. He frequently talks about engaging in exorcisms and battling demons. These comments and others would make him a hit on the podcast circuit, but aren’t ideal for a gubernatorial candidate. 

He’s become a fixation for liberal media. Liberal columnists, and even a few conservatives, warn that Marx poses as big a problem for Republicans as Graham Platner and the socialists do for Democrats. But that’s a stretch. Marx is the nominee because Colorado is no longer a competitive state. When powerless, Republicans at times pick clowns. Marx has no shot at gaining power. In contrast, the DSA candidates are winning primaries that bring them into power. 

DSA candidates have a discernible ideology. Marx and other “Insane Clown Party” figures do not. His platform is the usual Republican agenda. What makes him stand out are his crazy-sounding life story and obsession with demons. That’s strange, but it doesn’t threaten to upend America.

Of course, it says something about the GOP that a crank became a statewide nominee. But the Insane Clown Party is not nearly as potent as the DSA is within the Democratic Party. The DSA can actually take power and implement a radical agenda. The ICP can only lose races and create headlines for liberal reporters.

Colorado was once a battleground state. It had a Republican senator, Cory Gardner, this decade. But Gardner lost his seat by nearly 10 points in 2020. The last time Republicans did well in the state was way back in 2014. That’s when Gardner won his first and only term, and when Republicans came within a few points of winning the governorship. Since then, the state has become much bluer. Jared Polis won the governorship by nearly 10 points in 2018 and nearly 20 points in 2022. Kamala Harris won the state by 11 points in 2024.

The Colorado GOP is beleaguered, with money and leadership woes. There are still four Republican congressmen, but one of them is considered the most vulnerable Republican in 2026, and another is the unconventional populist Lauren Boebert. It’s a state with a penchant for oddball Republicans. The Republican nominee for the Second District, a safe Democratic seat, is a 27-year-old dinergoth massage therapist. It’s maybe not that surprising that a state GOP that gave us Boebert has also delivered us Marx. 

Marx is textbook Insane Clown Party. It’s a trend I identified within the GOP years ago. It’s characterized by vibes, not by principles or ideology. Its adherents are vaguely anti-establishment, desire to own the libs, and love conspiracy theories. Their primary focus is entertainment.

President Donald Trump has been able to direct this strange energy into serious issues and causes. Others who try to emulate his offbeat style turn into a clown show. Marx is one of them. All of his controversies center on his off-the-wall comments that have little to do with politics. It appears one of his main issues is fighting demons, which matters a lot now on the podcast circuit but doesn’t matter to voters. He is entertaining, which seems to be enough to draw Republican support.

We had a few candidates like this before. A few years ago, there were a number of wannabe right-wing influencers who ran against high-profile GOP villains like AOC and Ilhan Omar. They’d raise a lot of money, shovel red meat to conservative audiences, and make names for themselves. They would then lose by large margins.

In 2024, an ICP candidate managed to become the party nominee in the Minnesota Senate race. Royce White, a former basketball player, was picked despite his Black Lives Matter activism, his sketchy financial dealings, and his multiple baby mamas. He did prove to be entertaining, which was enough for GOP primary voters. White, like Marx, ran in a race Republicans were unlikely to win under any circumstances.

It’s important to reemphasize this: These guys are only winning primaries where it doesn’t matter who the candidate is. An ICP candidate seems to win on the Republican side only when the stakes in the general election are extremely low, because Republicans will lose regardless.

Even Republican voters aren’t exactly crazy about their crazy candidates. While Marx may fit within the quirky image of the Colorado GOP, he only won his primary race by a razor-thin margin, besting the second-place finisher by 0.5 percent. That’s despite outraising his opponent by a wide margin. He raised $3.2 million in a race in which only a little over $4 million has been spent among all candidates. The fact that Marx blew out the opposition in fundraising while barely winning undermines the notion he’s the new face of the GOP.

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The situation is completely different with the DSA candidates. Platner was so popular with Democrats he forced out a two-term governor from the primary, becoming the party nominee in a race that leans blue. DSA candidates have defeated serious establishment candidates around the country and can expect to head to Washington or govern major cities, like Washington, after the midterms. There are no ICP figures expected to have anything like that kind of power after the midterms. It’s also unclear what “radical” things they’d do if elected.

The DSA has a clear agenda that would open our borders, open our prisons, and open up public housing in the suburbs while closing down businesses and redistributing Middle America’s money to the left’s preferred constituents. If Marx became Colorado governor, he would continue to say goofy things and might look into providing exorcist support at schools, but otherwise he’d pursue familiar Republican policies. He’s a clown, but hardly a dangerous one.

It’s still a problem that Republican voters are tempted by the ICP. These candidates damage the GOP’s reputation and repel normie voters from the right. Their random crankery is genuinely off-putting. But it’s silly for the media to equate Victor Marx with the Karl Marx fans in the Democratic Party. The DSA has an opportunity to wield power. The most dangerous thing about the ICP is that it might unwittingly help the DSA achieve that goal.